The state of community life in general, and of education in
particular, in Africa south of the Sahara (henceforth also referred to
as the sub-continent) seems to indicate that Africans have failed
somewhat in their efforts to provide for themselves lives of good
quality. Malala's (1) complaint that the African century has failed
to dawn can be ascribed inter alia to the fact that sub-continental
Africans seem not to have mastered the art of peaceful coexistence. (2)
Life in this part of the world has for decades now been characterized by
wars, violence, soaring crime rates and delinquent behavior, also in the
more subtle forms of sexism, xenophobia, selfishness, collapse of family
life, a growing gap between the rich and the poor, corruption and
racism. (3) Such conditions are detrimental to the quality of personal
and communal life. (4)

Similar conditions prevail in schools. In many areas, life in
schools has been characterized by violence, destruction of property,
laziness, a lack of punctuality, weak performance, learner and teacher
delinquency and self-centredness--in brief, by a general lack of moral
literacy. (5)

This portrayal of life on the sub-continent does not sit well with
the precepts of the traditional African philosophy of life known as
Ubuntu (in the Nguni languages; Botho in the Sotho languages, Hunhu in
Shona, Bisoite in Lingala-Baluba, Ujamaa in Kiswahili, Harambee in
Kenya). (6) According to Ubuntu, a person is who s/he is only because of
the existence of others and because of his/her coexistence with them. If
this is indeed the world-view according to which the people of the
sub-continent live, why do we then find the inhabitants of the Sudan,
Zimbabwe, Kenya, South Africa, Liberia, the Democratic Republic of the
Congo, the Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, Western Sahara, Ethiopia, Eritrea,
Somalia and Guinea-Bissau (to mention only a few of the hotspots) to
seemingly have lost sight of this sentiment? Why has Ubuntu failed to
inspire the people of the sub-continent towards peaceful coexistence and
democracy?

Failure to live according to the precepts of Ubuntu constitutes a
threat to the freedom of the people. (7) Similar perpetrations also
occur in other parts of the world. They are a function of how the
respective life-views impact on people, their morality and their
behavior. Unfortunately, we have to confine our attention to the
situation in Africa. It is not the purpose of this article to harp on
the negative conditions prevailing on the sub-continent or on the
perceived failure of its inhabitants to live according to the tenets of
Ubuntu. Neither is its purpose to once again proclaim the already
well-known virtues of Ubuntu as a potential contributor to enhanced
quality of life. Instead, the purpose of this paper is to consider the
possibility of Ubuntugogy being a more suitable approach for sub-Saharan
Africa than typical Western-style colonial education.

While having borrowed the term 'Ubuntugogy' from Bangura,
(8) I shall follow his lead only partially. I shall argue that two sets
of changes have to be made to render Ubuntugogy more amenable to the
demands of the modem, globalized, urbanized and industrialized
circumstances on the African subcontinent. Firstly, Ubuntu, that is the
life-view that forms the sub-stratum of Ubuntugogy, has to be updated,
modernized or reconstructed to put it more in line with the demands of
21st century life. Secondly, while the notion of Ubuntugogy in itself
remains attractive as a return to the classic past of Africa, it also
needs filling with more appropriate content. It needs a global format to
be able to address the needs of modern sub-continental Africans. (9)
Because of their traditional tribal limitations, a simple return to
Ubuntu and Ubuntugogy will not pass muster in modern African societies.
Pedagogical input from the northern hemisphere has to be included in the
new approach. Ubuntu and Ubuntugogy also need filling with new moral
content. (10) The rest of this article contains proposals about this
reconstruction process.

THE PROPOSED RECONSTRUCTION OF UBUNTU AS THE PHILOSOPHICAL
SUB-STRATUM OF UBUNTUGOGY

Ubuntu as a traditional tribal life-view could be updated or
modernized in several ways. This is a prerequisite for it to become a
suitable sub-stratum for a similarly updated or modemized version of
Ubuntugogy. The horizontal spirituality of Ubuntu could receive
attention. Because of the traditional horizontal spirituality of Ubuntu,
an individual could see no value in deeds and behavior unrelated to the
practices and rituals of the group to which s/he belonged. (11) The
expression 'a person is only a person with and through other
people' possessed, according to Bangura, (12) unmistakeable
spiritual or religious undertones since it referred not only to living
persons but also to the ancestors. A person found himself or herself
tied to others, including the ancestors, in a total mystic union. (13) A
person saw him- or herself as a vital link in the cosmic chain of vital
forces; s/he was a link in the chain 'upwards', i.e. with the
ancestors, as well as 'downwards', i.e. with the descendants.
(14) Each individual was therefore involved in a spiritual transaction
with all the ramifications of his or her community. (15) A person's
own birth was unimportant in the greater scheme of things; s/he only
acquired significance through living and working with other people and
through taking responsibility for the self and others. Moral values and
traditional codes of behavior were seen as sanctioned by the gods and
the ancestors. Human behavior therefore always found itself in the
balance between the spiritual world and the human world. (16) As a
concession to Western influences, greater recognition could be accorded
to the status of the individual while still recognizing the importance
of the group to which s/he belongs and its interests. (17) Greater
recognition of the status of the individual and his or her group is
important for counteracting the modem economic logic of maximizing which
tends to force individuals and their interests to the background. (18)
Individual interests should not be allowed to disappear into group or
communal interests. Each person should be seen as a link in the chain of
vital forces, but not as having value only because of being a link. Each
individual is important in his or her own right.

Although the vital link between individual and
ancestors/descendants may become less significant because of this subtle
change in how the individual is viewed, modern sub-continental Africans
should never lose sight of his / her duties, privileges and
responsibilities towards the self and others. Since it is unrealistic to
conceive the fulfilment of duties etc. in a modern society as a response
to divine or ancestral injunctions, each member of a community should
feel him- or herself morally bound to the precepts of some or other
Manifesto of Human Rights (as part of modern constitutions, or as
declarations by organizations such as the United Nations). They should
furthermore feel bound to such duties etc. because of the moral
imperatives flowing from their personal religious affiliations,
convictions and life views.

This adaptation to Ubuntu will give new meaning to the idea of
human rights. (19) It will help tone down the excessive self- and
group-centeredness of Ubuntu and to transform it into moral behavior
that could benefit the entire sub-continental (educational) community.
This proposal also resonates with the theory of communitarianism:
individualism should be toned down in favor of collective values and
aims. (20)

In the second place, Ubuntu's traditional dualistic nature
should be eradicated but not be replaced with Western-style dualisms.
Ubuntu traditionally embraced the notion that the mortality, the
limitedness, the contingency and finiteness of the human being could and
should be counterbalanced by his or her connections and relatedness with
others in the group. (21) This dualism could be eliminated by placing
stronger emphasis on the inherent monism, (22) integrity and holism of
Ubuntu, (23) not by replacing it with, for instance, the typical Western
two-realm dualism of (for instance) the secular (worldly) as opposed to
the sacral (holy) realms of life.

In the third place, the vertical spirituality of Ubuntu could be
updated. Africans originally believed in the existence of spiritual,
even mystical forces and powers, and because of their anxiety about the
brevity of their existence on earth, they not only subjected themselves
to these forces (which could be gods, the Christian God, spirits or
ghosts) but also sought safety in the group. (24) Updating here could
include enjoining each individual and his/her group to attach themselves
to a religious source (God / god) that makes sense to them in a modern
context. (25) Each inhabitant of the sub-continent should not only enjoy
the freedom to draw inspiration from this source but also enjoy peaceful
coexistence despite religious and life view differences.

Part of this process would involve updating Ubuntu values by
'thickening' them with relevant life view content. Swartz (26)
and Zecha (27) pointed out that the names of values as such do not have
moral significance because such names are susceptible to relativistic
interpretation. The name of a value signifies a 'thin' value,
i.e. a minimalist, limited, general and public description that would
suit public consensus. 'Thick' values, on the other hand,
refer to private, maximalist, religious, life-view, confessional and
even prescriptive value formulations that fall outside public consensus.
(28) The moral 'thickening' of a value entails more than a
broad description of a 'thin' value. For example, to describe
the Ubuntu value of 'respect for others' as 'refraining
from derogatory language and abusive labels' (29) is merely a
broader description and falls short of life-view and moral
'thickening'.

The values embodied in Ubuntu could be updated with content from
the respective religious affiliations and life-views of the individuals
and groups living on the sub-continent. Each person and his or her group
could 'thicken' Ubuntu values such as human dignity, humanism,
empathy, respect, interactive dependency, collective responsibility,
peace, friendliness, forgiveness, sharing, a sense of connectedness,
altruism, understanding, respect for individual differences, knowledge
of self and others, goodness, generosity and benevolence with content
drawn from his or her particular religious orientation, convictions and
life-view. 'Thickening' of such 'empty' value names
with definite religious and life-view content will give new life to each
of them and make them more useful as norms for modern life. (30) This
proposal resonates with the multi-cultural idea of acknowledging
individual and group differences.

Ubuntu in its traditional form cannot speak to the mind of modern
21st century urbanized and industrialized sub-continental Africans.
While the values embodied in Ubuntu remain valuable and worthy, they
have become virtually meaningless to modern Westemized people because of
their original tribal and parochial nature and also because of their
'thin' moral content. Ubuntu could have been effective in
those early far-flung small tribal communities where everyone knew
everyone else, and could behave according to its tenets. This is not
possible in huge, modem, globalized and industrialized communities. The
updated, modernized and reconstructed version of Ubuntu proposed above
will acquire new potential for influencing the lives and behavior of
people, and this will have a dual impact: the precepts of Ubuntu will
have acquired new moral and life-view content, and it will consequently
become a more adequate sub-stratum for Ubuntugogy.

UBUNTUGOGY: BANGURA'S VIEWS

Bangura (31) circumscribes Uhuntugogy as follows:

... the essence of ubuntugogy is that it is imperative and
urgent for African educators to be concerned about broader
education as well as training and to be concerned about
approaches to learning and teaching which are undergirded
by humanity or fellow feeling toward others. When
ubuntugogy is considered along with the idea of the
socialization effects of educational environments and the
possibilities of a reinforcement of these notions and
contexts, the implications for an African educational process
appear vital.

According to Bangura, (32) 'the salvation for Africans hinges
upon employing indigenous African educational paradigms which can be
subsumed under the rubric of ubuntugogy, which I define as the art and
science of teaching and learning undergirded by humanity towards others.
(33)

Bangura is correct in arguing that Western-type colonialist style
education (schooling) has not served the people of the sub-continent
well, and that a return to Ubuntugogy as indigenous approach to
education should be considered. According to him, (34) Western systems
are incompatible with the African frame of mind because the former are
based on a world view that fragments African life in the sense that it
tends seeing education as something separate from politics, religion,
economics and the social institutions of family, group or people. This
fragmentation can be blamed on a Western-type epistemology that has its
roots in Graeco-Roman and Judeo-Christian thought. This epistemology, as
implied in the previous section, is the opposite of the monism and
holism of Ubuntu as an integrative world-view. (35) Western-type
education is also discriminatory in the sense that it tends to give
disproportionate attention to the children of influential people and to
those with greater potential. It also regarded traditional African life,
culture, religion and education as primitive and inferior. (36)

In Bangura's view, a return to Ubuntu is also necessary in
view of the African's criticism of Western-style individualism. The
individuality which Ubuntu respects, says Bangura, (37) is not the
Cartesian type, i.e. a conception of individuality in terms of which the
individual or the self can be conceived without necessarily conceiving
or taking into account the other. The Cartesian or Western-style
individuality (i.e. individualism) sees the individual as existing prior
to and independently from the community or society. The rest of society
is merely an add-on to a pre-existent and self-sufficient individual
being. Ubuntu rejects this modernistic and atomistic individualism since
it overemphasizes the seemingly solitary aspects of human existence at
the expense of the communal aspects and interests. It also rejects
Western-style collectivism which views society as a collection of
separately existing and detached individuals or small groups. Ubuntu
views the individual in terms of his or her relationship with others;
individuals only exist only in and through their relationships and bonds
with others.

According to Nyerere, (38) the people of Africa have to regain
their former holistic and integrative attitude of mind: they took care
of the community, and the community took care of them. People neither
needed nor wished to exploit their fellow human beings. People have to
relinquish their intellectual and social life in ivory towers that
isolate them from the rest of the population living in misery and
ignorance. (39) The people of Africa have no inherent African
deficiency; they merely have to rediscover themselves and regain the
achievements of their past which they lost as a function of their
colonial history. Once this has been achieved, the people of Africa will
be truly free from oppression. They will have advanced from serfdom to
true freedom. (40) Bangura's plea for a return to a broader, more
holistic and integrated form of education that is undergirded by
humanity and fellow feeling toward others and closely connected with the
idea of socialization should be lauded. A complete turn to traditional
Ubuntu will however not be suitable as a basis for 21st century African
education. The following arguments substantiate this position.

WHY AN UNQUALIFIED RETURN TO UBUNTUGOGY WOULD BE INADVISABLE

An unqualified return to the African past would be unrealistic

Bangura's coverage of traditional African education has two
sides. On the one hand, he highlights certain aspects of informal
education in village and/or clan context that will always be a feature
of good education, such as motherly care, learning of good manners and
the inculcation of values, respect for adults, maintaining virginity
before marriage, parental accountability, community input in education,
the holistic and integrated approach to education (the holistic
presentation of subjects), the respect for ancestors and the deceased,
the attainment of knowledge about local conditions and government, the
methods of informal education, including punishment and the value of the
extended family in education (in contrast with the roles of Western-type
nuclear and broken families). (41) No modern-day educationist will
quarrel about the perennial pedagogical importance of these aspects. On
the other hand, Bangura's pleas for a return to other aspects of
traditional African education do not seem quite realistic in terms of
the demands of life in the 21st century.

While making the valid point, for instance, that traditional forms
of education existed all over Africa before the arrival of Westerners,
(42) his plea for a return to education based on ethnic and clan units
that both covered the theoretical and practical fields of life, that was
part of living, where everyone did not have to go to a school building
to be educated since the whole process of living was a process of
learning, is an example of such a not quite realistic proposal. Life in
Africa in the 21st' century has become too specialized for such a
romanticized return to the past.

The same goes for his point that traditional African education was
as deliberate as Western forms of education, that it was aimed at
achieving definite goals. The children were taught different things at
different ages. The teachers included the parents, siblings, relatives,
neighbors and members of the peer group. Education began roughly at the
age of eight and was a life-long process. Much was learned through clan
traditions and through contact between boys and girls of the same age
groups. Mothers were the most important teachers. (43) Also in this
case, a return to the traditional system of informal education (by
parents, siblings, peers) will not be realistic. Teachers in modem
societies have become subject specialists, themselves educated for three
to four years at institutions of formal higher education, professionals
in their own right who ply their trade in formal school settings. While
informal and life-long education and the roles of mothers as educators
will remain important for ensuring good education, they cannot provide
in modern-day needs. Life in 21st century Africa requires more
specialized education. Traditional specialists such as herbalists,
medicine people, boat- and canoe-makers, basket-weavers, fishing
basket-makers and so on (44) might still have a place, but their
specializations have been superseded by more modern ones.

Not clear to what extent the values embodied in Ubuntugogy differ
from similarly named Western-type pedagogical values

The quotation from Bangura's paper in the first paragraph of
the previous section emphasizes a point made earlier in this paper. The
expression 'humanity towards others' constitutes a
'thin' value. How does this value differ moral content-wise
from the similarly named Western value? Also the demand that education
should be linked to actual life (45) does not differ at face value from
the similar pedagogical value held in the Western world. The same
applies for the value of education promoting and safeguarding the
inherited cultures and languages of the people. (46) The difference will
only appear once the respective values have been 'thickened'
with life-view / moral content.

Bangura furthermore concludes as follows with respect to
traditional African education: 'Whether formally or informally,
traditional education prepared the youths of a community for specific
responsibilities they were going to shoulder as adults. It was education
for life with all its complexities, aimed at satisfying personal needs,
promoting the growth of personal talents and serving the community in
which the students lived. This facilitated the transfer of knowledge
from one generation to the next.' This conclusion raises certain
questions: Does this view not also apply to the modern and specialized
Western-type education currently in force in most countries of the
world? In which respects does this view express the uniqueness or the
superiority of African, Ubuntu education to other, more modern forms of
education?

The same argument can be invoked with respect to his conclusion
that 'traditional education resulted in changes in attitudes and
values. Such changes were the result of learning processes and not
merely from imitation and conformity. The traditional teacher was not
simply teaching his students to imitate what their forefathers had done.
Rather, he or she was engaged in a more complex task which involved
imparting to his or her students such ideas as would lead to
intellectual growth, constructive thinking, conceptualization and
creativity. Graduates from traditional institutions of learning were
capable of composing new songs, riddles and proverbs, etc. They could
make new models of tools and military weapons. They could treat new
diseases and handle effectively calamities such as earthquakes, famine,
floods and other unexpected development' (47) The question is: In
what sense do these aspects of Ubuntu education differ from modern
Western-style education?

Possible misconceptions

Bangura seems to operate on occasion with a view of Western-type
education that does not ring quite true. It is difficult to recognize
Western-type education in the following statement: 'Conformist
education could not have trained the traditional scholars to deal
effectively with new and sometimes very challenging situations'
(48) The expression 'conformist education' refers to
Western-type education, a form of education reputed for its concern
about advancing individualism and the interests of individuals, even to
the detriment of communal interests. Bangura (49) himself in fact
observed that Western-type education has made people selfish. On the
other hand, traditional African education based on Ubuntu has been
regarded as conformist in that it aimed at advancing the interests of
the community, the in-group at the expense of the individual. (50)

Bangura furthermore concludes: "In sum, traditional African
education through its examinations emphasized that students should be
able to learn skills and responsibilities, and to use common sense,
initiative and new concepts in dealing with new situations. Indeed, for
the African, education was a process of human survival." Does this
imply that Western-type education has failed in these respects? When
Bangura (51) notes that Africans today live in two worlds, in other
words conduct a dualistic existence, it is not clear whether he approves
or not. He merely observes that 'many Africans, including the
educated ones, continue to live in two worlds: the traditional and the
modern-scientific. When modern hospitals fail to cure a disease, the
patient goes to the traditional doctor. In fact, some people know which
disease to refer to which doctor. In sum, Christianity, colonialism and
Western education have failed to completely uproot the African from his
or her cultural world. The people who live in these two worlds are often
confused, because both worlds seem to yield appropriate fruits.'
Can this dualistic way of life be regarded as consistent with the
monistic, holistic and integrative nature of Ubuntu, and should it be
preferred to the Western lifestyle?

It is also difficult to connect Bangura's (52) discussion of
pedagogy, andragogy, ergonagy (work-related education) and heutagogy
(self-determined learning) with his conclusion (53) that
'Ubuntugogy transcends pedagogy, andragogy, ergonagy and
heutagogy' because 'as the art and science of learning and
teaching that is undergirded by humanity towards others, ubuntugogy
hinges upon the African philosophy and way of life called ubuntu'.
Nothing in his discussion of pedagogy etc. suggests that pedagogy etc.
would be irrelevant or contrary to Ubuntugogy. He provides no evidence
that distinctions such as education aimed at immature children
(pedagogy), mature people (andragogy) or the aged (gerontagogy) would be
irrelevant or detrimental to Ubuntugogy. The same applies for
distinguishing between work-related education (ergonagy) or
self-determined learning (heutagogy). These are mere distinctions within
the realm of Ubuntugogy which have to be developed theoretically, also
with respect to the African context.

UBUNTUGOGY: A QUALIFIED VIEW

Bangura (54) himself showed the way forward by concluding:
'...a new culture has emerged; it is a mixture of the African
culture and the European culture. It is to this new culture that
ubuntugogy as an African educational paradigm can respond ...
positively'. Despite his criticism of Western influences and
education, he does not turn a blind eye to the reality that Western
culture and education have through the years made rich contributions to
the world and lives of Africans. A romanticized return to Ubuntugogy
based on Ubuntu-values is not viable; a return is not possible without
taking into account the impact of Western pedagogical influences.
Bangura is nevertheless correct in saying that a new African educational
paradigm has to take root. This new paradigm, I contend, should not only
embody the most positive features of Ubuntu but also those of modern
Western-style education.

Ubuntugogy has to be adapted in at least two respects. It has to be
based on precepts of Ubuntu that are able to withstand the test of
relevance in modem, globalized and industrialized societies. Bangura
(55) offers an excellent example of this: Western-style individualism
has to make way for the Ubuntu way of seeing the individual, namely as
person-in-relation with others in terms of the adapted versions of the
horizontal and vertical spiritualities discussed above. Education on the
sub-continent has to move from solitary (Western-style individualism) to
solidarity, from independence to interdependence, from individuality as
something apart of community to individuality in terms of community,
from competition to cooperation, from market-based capitalism to
communal/social capitalism, from exploitation of others to seeking
benefits for them, and from seeing the other as fixed to seeing the
other in his or her historical context.

The same applies for Western views of humanity in which reason
tends to be overrated. (56) In brief, says Bangura, (57) 'we must
revisit African teaching that takes (Ubuntu-based) epistemological,
cosmological, methodological, and ubuntugogic challenges into
account'. Ubuntugogy will no doubt add a typically African flavor
to education. (58)

In the second place, for Africa to keep up with scientific and
technological developments in the Western world, the most favorable
aspects of Western-type education should be retained as warp and woof of
the proposed 'new' or 'updated version' of
Ubuntugogy. Since this is a vast topic in itself, only the barest
outline can be given of what should be retained from Africa's
Occidental heritage. African education has through the last few
centuries profited from at least three contributions from the West. The
first is its achievements in the fields of analytical philosophy of
education and empirical studies in education. Because of these analyses,
we in Africa today have a better understanding of education and its
ramifications than we would have had if we had confined ourselves to the
traditional holistic and integrated views of education. Western-type
scientific analyses reveal to us the complex structure of education.
(59) As a result, African educationists today not only understand the
complexities of education based on empirical research (say, with
reference to independent and dependent variables) but they are also able
to quantify them because of their mastery of nominal and inferential
statistics. Strides have also been made by African educationists in
terms of qualitative research, an approach that of late has been
revealing the intricacies and subtleties of education in narrative form.
African educationists have through the years also gained insight into
education and its links with politics, economics and other walks of life
through their exposure to (New) Marxism, Western-type socialism,
pragmatism, and critical humanism, to mention only a few of the more
dominant paradigms. (60)

Of course, there is still criticism that African education (in
particular higher education) remains out of sync with the
continent's development aspirations, among others because of
Western influences. Hountondji, (61) for instance, is of the opinion
that science in a colonial context is nothing like an endogenous
initiative; it develops knowledge on Africa instead of knowledge by
Africans for their own collective promotion and development. The problem
persists in post-colonial times. According to her, Third World scholars
are keen on publishing in Western journals, which amounts to addressing,
first and foremost, a Western readership. As a consequence of this
extroversion, these scholars tend to address issues that are primarily
of interest to the Western public. In the second place, African
education has profited from the Western-style infrastructure and
technological innovations. Because of its exposure to Western-style
schools, classrooms, teaching technology, support services, organization
and structures and financial management, pockets of schooling in Africa
can today compare with the best in the West. A return to the informal
structures associated with traditional education in Africa does not seem
viable.

And finally, African education has also profited from Western-style
"philosophy of education." For example, during the last three
decades, educationists in the West have begun to understand that not the
learning content but rather the learners and the learning processes seem
to be most important in teaching and learning. Learners probably do not
master learning materials by sitting quietly and absorbing knowledge
provided to them by teachers as 'knowledge managers'. Learners
learn best through active, constructive and self-steered processes
through which each of them constructs internal knowledge representations
that embody their personal interpretations of the learning experiences.
These representations change constantly based on the different meanings
that people attach to their experiences. (62) While the theory of
constructivism in education might seem 'new' to Westerners, it
can arguably be seen as a recognition of traditional African-style
teaching and learning. However, it is scholars from the West who
succeeded in attaching a nametag to it and whose analyses help us
understand it better.

We are also indebted to Western-style "philosophy of
science" for the depth of our insight into education today. We
would have been much poorer as African educators and scholars if we had
not been exposed to (Platonic and Hegelian) idealism, (Kantian)
rationalism, (Heideggerian and Kirkegaardian) existentialism and
phenomenology, intuitionism, formalism and structuralism (in
Mathematics, for instance) and many other views of the human being,
reality, knowledge and education that have come to us from the West.
Western-type, scholars have developed theory and model building to a
fine art, and African scholarship would have been poorer without it.
(63)

CONCLUSION

Education in 21st century sub-Saharan Africa will benefit by a
qualified return to a more traditional form of education based on the
precepts of Ubuntu. However, we Africans have developed too far down the
road to becoming modern, globalized, industrialized and urbanized
communities for an unqualified and romanticized return to traditional
African-style education based on the original Ubuntu ontology,
anthropology, epistemology and education. The thinking of most modern
African educators and educationists has already become so fused with
Western-style theory of education, its structures and ramifications that
an unqualified return seems inconceivable.

While a return to traditional African-style education (Ubuntugogy)
should indeed be contemplated because of the inherent strength of the
values embedded in Ubuntu as its underlying philosophy of life, Ubuntu
should be 'updated' and filled with new moral and life view
content for purposes of life in the 21st century. The same applies for
Ubuntugogy. A qualified return to traditional African-style education
will favor pedagogical progress on the continent. While holding on to
the basic precepts of Ubuntu, we have to creatively blend them with the
educational contributions of the Western world.

(19.) Ibid. This treatment of the topic of human rights may be
somewhat abstract. In this era of neo-liberal hegemony, there is always
the danger of human rights being subordinated to the demands of the
market. South Africa is a case in point. There is much that could be
done to improve the lives of many South Africans inspired by the concept
of human rights (as embodied in Chapter 2 of the South African
Constitution, 1996) but doing so might scare foreign investors away.
Policies that promote social spending, human dignity and Black economic
empowerment are most likely to be seen by global capital as regulatory,
restrictive and likely to increase the cost of operating business and
taxes. So, while at the philosophical level the idea of human rights can
be commended, it becomes difficult at the implementation level on the
ground.

It can also be argued along the line of Confucius' thinking
that the autonomous individual as conceptualized in the West is rather
an abstract and under-socialized neo-classical entity. This is a result
of the project of the enlightenment and modernity which in spite of its
contributions to Western development remains problematic and at the root
of many of our problems today. A real human being is only human among
others by being embedded in a web of relationships. The concept of human
rights while well intentioned remains susceptible to subversion by
theories such as Utilitarianism and Nozick's theory of Justice as
entitlement (Libertarianism).Again, while at a conceptual and
philosophical level the notion of human rights can be supported, it
remains a problem at the implementation level.

(25.) Religion is mentioned in passing here. However, it should be
recognized that throughout history, religion has been a source of
conflict arising from different orientations and world views. Some
religions such as Christianity and Islam are expansionist, seeking to
convert others to their beliefs. Others, like African Traditional
Religion, are not. How to reconcile these differences which underlie
religion-based conflict and the tenets of ubuntugogy which call for
peaceful co-existence is an important issue in view of the fact that
religion is fundamental to human existence sociologically (see M.
Shermer, The Science of Good and Evil, (New York: Henry Holt and
Company), p. 7, but cannot be addressed here. Also see I. Buruma, and A.
Margalit, Occidentalism, A Short History of Anti-Westernism, 2005 for a
discussion of confrontations between Oriental and Occidental religious
stances.

(26.) S. Swartz. "A Long Walk to Citizenship: Morality,
Justice and Faith in the Aftermath of Apartheid," pp. 556-565.

(33.) Some readers might argue that my argument here does little in
terms of how these ideas could be practically implemented. The argument
as it now stands is indeed a contribution in the field of Philosophy of
Education, and those critics would be correct in saying that it does not
enter into discussions about practical implementation. However, to
discuss practical implementation would require the addition of a
substantial section in which all the practical implications and
ramifications of what Bangura and I said about ubuntugogy will have to
be outlined. To do so is beyond the scope of this paper. It would be
worthwhile however for experts in the fields of, for instance,
curriculum and planning or educational administration to explore the
practical implications of these arguments.

(63.) This line of argumentation might create the impression that I
accept the contributions of Western philosophers as entirely beneficial.
These contributions also have a downside, however. The tendency to view
the contributions of the West as largely positive can be ascribed to the
culture hegemony that we have been subjected to for several centuries
now. All of us, including those of us in Africa, have become accustomed
to understanding the world in terms of Western conceptual categories.
Some philosophers and sociologists of science have however begun to
problematize the context in which these categories were generated (see,
for instance, S. Fuller, Philosophy of Science and its Discontents, (New
York: The Guilford Press, 1993.)

Much as Plato made a contribution to Western theoretical thought,
for instance, he and his followers' philosophies (the
neo-Platonists) have led Christians to assume that understanding of God
should be rooted in Platonism. This assumption resulted in the belief
(among, for instance, African Christian missionaries) that understanding
of the God of the Bible should be mediated by Platonism, which is a
dualistic pagan philosophy in itself. It is a fact that Ancient Greeks
helped shape theoretical and religious thinking in the West, but to
convert this historical fact into a normative necessity in the sense
that for an African to understand God and the world he or she should
apply pagan conceptual categories is to support and promote cultural
hegemony at a sophisticated and subtle level.

Similar arguments can be put forward with respect to education and
the status of women. According to Plato's Republic, which is
speculative rather than a concrete historical analysis, education should
be based on function and aptitude, but how people discover their talents
and aptitude is not a philosophical question. Plato himself enjoyed
ample free time to develop himself because most work was done by slaves.
Plato, Aristotle and Hesiod (to mention only three ancient Greek
philosophers) also denied women equal rights with men. Several centuries
later, Hegel in his philosophy of history dehumanized Blacks in saying
that he did not even recognize the humanity of Africans as according to
him they have not developed historical consciousness. They are living in
slumber, having not yet awoken to human civilization. It is therefore
not even worthwhile to reflect on them.

Kant's concept of dare to reason which is a prerequisite for
freedom can be construed as a denial to women of equal capacity to do
the same. Hegel critiques him by averring that all his ideas are
theoretical and formalist because they remain at a high level of
abstraction and fail to deal with reality.

It is clear from these historical examples from Western philosophy
that the fundamental categories that inform social science discourse are
rooted in the ideas of people whose thinking was drenched in various
forms of Eurocentric bias such as androcentrism Such forms of
Eurocentrism has repeatedly mutated itself but it has never totally
disappeared. These examples highlight the need for caution. While we
have to appreciate the contributions of the Western world we have to
constantly guard against conceptual categories that might imprison our
minds, especially at the religious level. We should guard against
elevating Western (including ancient Greek) paganism to a sacred status
while condemning other forms of paganism. Power/conflict theory can be
key to understanding hegemony-building strategies. According to some
analysts, there is usually someone or some group who are thought to have
power and to use it for some purpose. There is somehow power in the
system or in the culture that we inherited, and that power controls us,
sometimes (as shown above) in deleterious ways R. Hardin, Power. In: T.
Honderich. The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2005), p. 746.

By Johannes L van der Walt *

* Johannes L van der Walt is a Professor of Education at the
Faculty of Education Sciences Potchefstroom Campus, North-West
University, South Africa.

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